Bedrock Buried Child

While watching reruns of The Flintstones on MeTV, I realized that we never found out the secret of Bamm Bamm's origin. He just showed up in a baby basket on Barney and Betty's doorstep one night after they wished on a star for an infant of their own after enviously cooing over their neighbors' darling Pebbles. Where did Bamm Bamm really come from? This deep dark secret reminded me of Sam Shepard's Buried Child and Tracey Letts' August: Osage County. So here is a parody imagining the ultimate reckoning. With apologies to Sam Shepard, Tracey Letts, Joseph Hanna and William Barbera.

The scene is the living room of the Flintstone house. It is dark and gloomy, though it is early afternoon. All the shades are drawn. Fred Flintstone is seated in is favorite comfy rock chair, asleep in front of a TV set. The sounds of a rerun of The Prize is Price can be softly heard. Fred snores loudly and is surrounded by bones from a brontosaurus steak. The decaying carcass of Dino the dinosaur is one corner. A long-

What if Sam Shepard and Tracey Letts
wrote an episode of the Flintstones?

billed bird on its last legs is perched above a dusty hi-fi set, ready to play records with its beak. Wilma Flintstone, heavily made-up to cover her age and wearing an inappropriately revealing dress, staggers into the room, leaning on a wooden cane.

Wilma: Fred! Wake up, you old ton of guts!

Fred (struggling to wake, mumbling): What, what is it? (Sees Wilma) Oh, it's you. I was dreaming of Gina Lolabrickita and here you are, like a nightmare. Why did you have to wake me up?

Wilma: To tell you I'm going out. I didn't want you to panic if you saw I was gone.

Fred: Panic? Are you kidding? I'd probably be so happy, I'd give myself a heart attack.

Wilma: Very funny.

Fred: Where you are going all dolled up, anyway? Who'd want to see an old buzzard like you?

Wilma: Give it a rest, Fred. I'm going to meet Reverend Rockbury to discuss your final arrangements.

Fred: Final arrangements? I ain't dead yet, goddamnit. (He tries to rise but can't) You already got me dead and buried, why you scheming hussy. I'll bet you and that Bible shaker are plotting to steal all my money--- (he flops back into the chair).

Wilma: Don't make me laugh. What money? After 50 years at Slate Gravel what do you have to show for it? This dump? A dead dinosaur we can't afford to have buried. A broken-down hi-fi set that can't even play CDs? Ever since you started seeing that little green man from outer space, you've just fallen apart. You sit in that chair and watch old game shows and wrestling matches all day while I try to put food on the table. I tell you, Fred Flintstone, I am glad our daughter ran away. Glad, do you hear! 

Bookless Black Friday

This Thanksgiving weekend I visited my family in Philadelphia and made the mistake of driving to the King of Prussia Plaza on Black Friday. I hadn't been there in two years and it can be fun. At least it was. What a madhouse. Finding a parking spot was the biggest challenge, now they have sections of the lot blocked off for valet parkng by the big dept. stores like Neiman Marcus. Once I hiked from my spot to the main plaza, I wanted to look at the book stores. They even had a comic book store there the last time I went.

There was a mall worker at the map and he asked if he could help me. "Yes, where are the bookstores?"
"We don't have any here, sir." he said. "We burned them all down, books are Communists," he added as a joke.

"Really," I replied with surprise. "There used to be like four or five."

"Yeah, but they're all gone," he admitted dropping the humorous angle. "Sorry."

I was amazed. The Plaza is huge and one of the major shopping outlets in the country, but no bookstores. I asked about a Best Buy so I could at least look at DVDs, there was one but I would have to drive to it. There was nothing but clothes and housewares in the plaza itself. I guess it's a sign of the times, how long before you can only get your books from the Kindle or Nook. I left that godless nightmare out of Farhenheit 451 to the Barnes and Noble near my parents'. I didn't buy anything, but I liked just being there.

The next day, Jerry and I drove to Philadelphia and wandered around South Street which had several bookstores including Atomic City Comics where I bought the new I Zombie, two Supermans and a Superboy.

Before we drove to South Street, my mother told me she found a Flintstones jelly glass from when I was a kid. It had a stencil of Fred hunting while a saber-toothed tiger sneaks up behind him. I said it was probably worth $10-$20. She gave it to me. The copyright said 1964. I didn't remember the specific glass, but I recalled Fred and Wilma pushing Welch's grape jelly and juice.